Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Let's Talk Secession, Shall We?

I'm putting this up just to fry the wankers at Folkie and CogniDissipated.

...there has never been a real question about the legitimacy of secession. It was the principle that led the 13 colonies to fight to get out from under the British crown in the war of 1776. It was the principle implicit in the 13 states ratifying the Constitution in 1789, made explicit in the ratifying documents of New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island. It was the option understood to be available to all states from that time until 1861, and considered by New England states at the Hartford Convention of 1814. No one put forth a compelling argument that secession was unconstitutional, and the fact that the US Congress in 1861 debated and failed to pass a law against it proves that it was not illegal even in that year.

Lincoln, of course, argued both sides to the middle, proving that he was a role model for most Presidents following him (see LBJ, Tricky Dick, and Clinton for the more egregious jerks).

...so far as reason has to do with it, Lincoln had previously argued that “any people anywhere… have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better,” and in his First Inaugural held that “if a majority deprives a minority of a clearly written constitutional right,” that would justify revolution.

Our author appears to have been at a TEA Party, because he has this part down very well, indeed:

...[secession] is something that should rightly be considered, thoughtfully and thoroughly, by many of the states and regions that see themselves as illegitimately being pushed around and dictated to and mishandled by a central government that has, over the last few decades, proven itself to be undemocratic, unresponsive, corrupt, inept, and unduly intrusive, at times unlawful and unconstitutional, and essentially unable to govern at the geographic and populational scale to which we have grown

Which assumption? That the Feds would attack to reclaim property they believe belongs to the Union? I mentioned that.

Short of secession, as commenters at the link you provided pointed out, it would be interesting enough to see even a single State dare to pull back from Federal handouts.

The link doesn't mention the recent proposal from the libertarians to withdraw en masse to New Hampshire, then hijack it. There are other forms of legume who've talked of creating states that float on international water. Maybe you can do it on a barge, like the casinos.

Yes, that's what I was talking about... Fed handouts come with all sorts of strings. It would be enlightening to see how the Feds and a state would try to settle those financial issues, assuming they don't inspire each other to simply come to blows or blow-ups. Think they'd still want to leave if they learned the true size of their debt obligation to the US of A? Would Texas want to create new checkpoints along a doubled border?